System design of reusable sounding rocket vehicle

A fully reusable rocket vehicle is proposed as a sounding rocket for observations of atmospheric phenomena, micro-gravity experiments and so on. Vehicle systems and ground / flight operations are designed for such science observations. For the development of the reusable rocket, a small test vehicle was built and flight-tested. This Reusable Vehicle Testing (RVT) lessons campaign provide repeated experiences of turnaround operations and vertical take-off and landing flights. In the present design of the reusable sounding rocket, the total length and maximum diameter of the vehicle is about 10m and 3m, respectively. The vehicle is propelled by the propulsion system composed of four liquid hydrogen / liquid oxygen engines. The weight of a payload carried to 120 km altitude is 100kg in the nose-fairing. The instrument for observations can be reused because of the repeated flight. The turnaround time for one flight is less than 24 hours (1 day). In the typical ballistic flight up to 120 km, the flight environments under 10(-5)G acceleration is able to be made for about 120 sec. The flight Mach number can be subsonic around the summit in the trajectory. These properties of reusable sounding rocket are expected to be useful and effective for many science missions.